Texas Book Festival

A couple of weekends ago, my husband and I spent two giddy, glorious days standing in long lines, searching for each other through crowds of people, and spending money.

No, we weren’t at Disney World. Or any amusement park for that matter.

We attended the Texas Book Festival!

Since moving to Austin almost three years ago, this has become our favorite weekend of the year. For two days conference

rooms in the capitol building as well as various tents set up outside the capitol are filled with book lovers listening to authors talk about their books. The hardest part is deciding which overlapping sessions to attend.

My husband usually gravitates to the political and history non-fiction discussions, while I enjoy the fiction and history talks. The truth is we often don’t see each other for hours at a time—but then we meet at a session that excites us both and we get to share all the interesting things we’ve heard while apart.

This year my two favorite sessions involved historical fiction (surprise, surprise) and a non-fiction memoir/history/current day story (definitely surprising).

Let’s talk non-fiction first. Susan Orlean’s new book is called The Library Book. A love letter to libraries, Orlean tells the story of the Los Angeles public library, both its history and its current day operations. Interwoven in the library’s story are Susan’s remembrances of her experience in libraries.

The bits of the history of the LA library she shared with us were fascinating, and the downtown library’s literal rise from the ashes of a devastating fire in 1986 is inspirational. The snippet of her own story she read to us from the book mimicked my memories of exploring the library as a child. Her talk was mesmerizing, making her book sound even more fascinating than it had from the blurb. And apparently not just for us! By the time we made it to the book store tent to buy it, they were sold out! (It’s still on our list. We’ll get a copy soon.)

The historical fiction session I loved most was chosen completely by the title of one of the featured books—Marilla of Green Gables. I have to admit that though this title made my Anne-loving heart sing, I was skeptical. Wary. Until I heard Susan’s McCoy’s story of how the descendants of L.M. Montgomery, also skeptics of her idea, have now become big fans of the book. I bought it, got it signed, and am saving it to read on an upcoming trip.

But the most fun part of that session ended up being the other featured book—When the Men Were Gone by Marjorie Herrera Lewis. This novel is based on the true story of a woman in a small Texas town who took over coaching the high school football team during WWII, when the men were gone. I loved this on three levels. One, I love football. (I’m a Texas girl, after all!) Two, I love obscure, almost-lost history. And three, it validated my very fictional woman coaching a high school boys basketball team when the coach left for the first World War (Playing by Heart)! It had seemed a plausible situation to me when writing, but it was nice to see my imagination validated by a real situation.

We have to wait a whole year for the next Texas Book Festival, but that’s okay because we now have so many books on our reading lists we’ll be more than busy reading until then.

Have you ever attended a book festival like this? When and where? What new authors or new books did you discover?